Tectonics

Tectonics (Peter Bo Rappmund, US 2012, 60 min., digital video)

Peter Bo Rappmund’s Tectonics is a sweeping travelogue that meditates upon the borderlands of the United States and Mexico.

Embarking from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, Rappmund weaves a visual compendium of the region which considers the border as both a physical divider and cultural barrier. Rappmund does not impose narration or other traditional documentary devices. Instead, he allows the natural and human-built topography to form his portrait of the landscape. Monolithic industrial objects, roadside memorial shrines, sun-drenched vistas, and a variety of barricades are just some of the subjects treated with balanced reverence within the frame.

Using a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, Rappmund creates a procession of exquisitely composed vignettes which are fractured and retimed through careful editing. The result lends the entire work a timeless feeling of altered reality as each scene yields to the next. A soundtrack of on-location field recordings complements the imagery with a rich blend of natural ambience and human murmurs.

Although completed in 2012, Tectonics has proven to be prescient as the growing political discourse over the border continues.

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